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Friday, July 4, 2014

Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane By Suzanne Collins is the second book of the Underland Chronicles. The other books in the series are Gregor The Overlander, Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, Gregor and the Marks of Secret, Gregor and the Marks of Secret.

Book Report

Gregors life hasn't returned to normalcy as he had expected, once his dad was back from the under land. The fever from under land doesn't seem to reduce. Boots suddenly disappears in Central Park and Gregor feels that the Cockroaches from the under land have kidnapped her, and he goes behind them.

Gregor is set for another quest due to a new prophecy and this time Boot's life is in trouble.

While the first book was exciting but had not many twists, the story line was not predictable. This book however has lots of twists but most are predictable. Probably a younger reader might not feel so. Overall an average book.

Characters

Gregor - The kid from New York who has to be the warrior for Underland.

Book Review - Spoiler Alert!!!

Gregor goes into the tunnel in Central Park in search of Boots. He believes that the Cockroaches from the under land took Boots. In the tunnel he is chased by two rats from the under land. And then most unexpectedly Ares came to his rescue. The bat he had bonded with the last time he was in the under land.

While in the last book the bats were not described up close. They were always flying and silent. This time however Ares brings out the finer aspects of what a bat is. So the Cockroaches took Boots because the rats want to kill her. The entire prophecy is explained and it looks like the rats want to kill boots because they feel that will break Gregor the only warrior who can defeat the white rat that is hiding now.

Once boots arrives in Regalia safely, Gregor decides that they will not leave till this prophecy is done with. It's not safe for Boots. Gregor managed to save his cloths from being burnt. And overheard some conversations about his training. It seems like he has to turn into a warrior soon. The training was attended by more cousins of Luxa. The training exercise of blood cannons took an amazing turn when Gregor managed to cut all the cannonballs with his sword.

The hideout of Ares is something that Gregor needed. It's still not clear how Gregor did that. The sudden alarm that is raised for rats entering Regalia is quite scary.Boots is their target. It turns out it was just Ripred, the friendly rat in Under land. He does sent 12 guards to hospital before Gregor reaches and stops the battle. He has another rat with him - Twitchtip

The journey this time had to be done on water and the under landers even had boats, but what was most surprising was the light source they used on water - giant fireflies. They weren't a good travel companion though. The squid was a surprising but a clichéd peril in the waters. It would have been better if there were some thing more bizarre. The way Gregor saves Twitchtip is amazing and very brave. Twitchtip tells Gregor what's the secret of his amazing fighting skills. He is a "rager".
The island with the crazy insects is really scary and that's the kind of bizarre creatures I was hoping for. They just ate a huge bat in seconds. They are like flying piranhas.

The fight with serpents was rather devastating for the party. But Gregor thinks boots is dead. I however am sure that she isn't. But that gives him the resolve and the confidence he lacked before. When Gregor found the Bane, it turned out out be a baby rat. Somehow I had expected that. While Gregor manages to get the baby Bane out of rats lands, he has no clue what to do with it.

Giving the Bane to Ripred might not have been the best thing to do. But going back to Regalia after that was the worst. Now they have been put into the dungeons. Just when things did not make sense, Neressa clears everything. The prophecy is fulfilled but I am not sure why Boots isn't back yet.

And just then Boots was back and from what it looks like Temp is dead and Luxa is either a prisoner or dead. But there was no reason for him to stay there now and he came back home and got the next prophecy too.